Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.

We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.

Walter had a very rough childhood — I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art.

He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.

His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.

I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.

Donald Fagen

September 3 2017

In Praise Of Steely Dan’s Enigmatically Brilliant Walter Becker

‘He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny,’ said his longtime creative partner Donald Fagen.

8 Songs That Show Walter Becker’s Brilliance

Becker’s sharp style always resonated.

Since it’s impossible to discern precisely what lyrics belong to either Becker or Fagen—the two shared the same sardonic sensibility and gift for wordplay, something that becomes evident on the pair’s solo albums, records that feel as if they’re part of the Steely Dan canon—guitar winds up as the place where it’s the easiest to hear Walter Becker’s individual voice. Alternately sharp and eloquent, his solos suit the beautiful, cynical spirit of Steely Dan.

Remembering Walter Becker (1950–2017)

Howard A. Rodman remembers his childhood friend, Walter Becker (1950–2017), co-founder of Steely Dan.

Walter Becker’s ‘11 Tracks of Whack’ Is the Best Steely Dan LP You Never Heard

Released on Sept. 27, 1994, 11 Tracks of Whack was Becker’s first solo album after years of success as half of Steely Dan alongside Fagen. The album has a distinctive sound, combining jazz, rock, blues and Becker’s often dark, sardonic lyrics.

While it may not have achieved widespread mainstream success, 11 Tracks of Whack has garnered a cult following – especially among Steely Dan biggest fans. In the end, the album seemed to owe more to Leonard Cohen’s 2000s-era work than Steely Dan.

In Memory Of Walter Becker, A Love Song For Steely Dan

He leaves behind an incredible body of work, one which I (and so many others) continue to successfully plumb for new joys, and one whose uncompromising singularity of vision would be remarkable in any age. As they say in baseball, Becker took his hacks and didn’t get cheated; and as any major (league) dude will tell you, you can’t really ask for much more than that. Rest in funky peace, Walter.

Remembering Walter Becker: A Maverick in Plain Sight

Considering his status as co-founder of one of America’s major pop bands of the past half century, Walter Becker was always something of an enlightened misfit. Enabled and enhanced by his longstanding creative collaborator, Donald Fagen, the dark-minded yet light-hearted Becker helped create the unique phenomenon that was—and is—Steely Dan.

Walter Becker: An Appreciation

His remarkable body of musical artistry continues to say so much more than I ever can, or will.

‘An All-Around Musician’: Steely Dan Guitarists Share Their Experiences of Working With Walter Becker

One of the great legacies of Steely Dan exists in the band’s second guitarist seat. Billboard had the opportunity to speak with four men who sat in that all-important chair of the Steely Dan.

How Rickie Lee Jones Wrote ‘The Horses’ With Walter Becker of Steely Dan

“He was my producer of ‘Flying Cowboys’,” Rickie Lee Jones tells Noise11.com. “I had this song and I said to him ‘it feels like it’s just not going anywhere’. He listened and he said ‘what if you change the key in the chorus?’ I don’t know music but he said it was relative to the key and we could go here. So he changed the key and I didn’t like it very much but I wasn’t going to say no to him because I know he is a great writer so I said ‘okay lets do that’. And that’s what we did”.

The jazz musicians who shaped Walter Becker and infused Steely Dan

Listening to any Steely Dan song will tell you that jazz was a part of the group’s DNA. Throughout albums like Can’t Buy a Thrill, Becker and Fagen were already becoming massive jazz fans, featuring different instrumental breaks that may as well be traditional jazz tunes.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

A long-shelved Walter Becker song finally sees the light

“Let Us Hang,” which Becker wrote with producer Larry Klein, had been gathering dust before the Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Nicole Zuraitis cut the song for her new album.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Santa Monica, California, 1977

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, NYC, 1981 ('Musician' magazine photoshoot)

Autographed Walter Becker publicity shot, 1993

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

‘How the hell are we going to pull this off live?’ is a question a lot of bands ask when they find themselves getting carried away in the studio. Yes, all the bells and whistles are pretty tempting when you’re first laying down a track, but you need to take into account how you’re going to move something from the confines of a recording session to a stage in front of a paying audience.

Are You Relivin’ the Years?: How Steely Dan Became a Cult Favorite for Millennials

Even as younger generations seem to be at war with baby boomer ideals, there is one relic of the ’70s they can get behind: the soft-rock sounds of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. How did a band known for its love of jazz and songs populated with down-on-their-luck characters become popular all over again?

Donald Fagen's 'Morph the Cat' Is Funny and Mad

Donald Fagen’s Morph the Cat brims with tight but light funk grooves, astonishing harmonic twists, and creepy, funny, mad lyrics.

The Paul Simon song that led to Steely Dan's 1977 masterpiece

Steely Dan, as their discography confirms, were never a group limited in their influences. Over the course of the outfit’s tenure, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen embraced a litany of different sounds, expanding their output far beyond the typical remit of jazz-pop fusion. Along the way, of course, the pair fostered a natural appreciation for the similarly innovative, expansive sounds of Paul Simon, but in the grand scheme of things, the output of Steely Dan rarely crossed paths with the work of the folk hero.

3 Steely Dan Songs That Every Rock Music Fan Needs To Know

Beginning in the early 1970s, Steely Dan released plenty of great songs. The band, started by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, created music that became the soundtrack throughout much of the decade, especially with these three songs. They still sound so good that they should be required listening for every rock music fan.

The strangest song Donald Fagen ever wrote

Jazz has always been a genre that favours the strange and outlandish. In every style and subgenre that falls under the jazz umbrella, the artists who dare to put themselves out there as true origins are often those who are most handsomely rewarded.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Hippies, cocaine, and ‘dog meat’: the oral history of ‘You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It’

The sordid tale of how a lost counterculture film gave Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the chance to make their first album.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Steely Dan 'Scene' magazine cover story, 1974

Rickie Lee Jones with her producer, Walter Becker, during the recording of her 1989 album, 'Flying Cowboys', at Cherokee Studios, Hollywood, California

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Donald Fagen’s acclaimed solo album ‘Kamakiriad’ is about to be heard in remarkable new detail. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is giving the Grammy-nominated 1993 release its first premium audiophile editions, delivering the album from the original masters in formats created for serious collectors and dedicated listeners alike.

Now available, the release includes a strictly limited UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP box set, capped at 4,000 numbered copies, alongside a numbered Hybrid SACD edition.

Both editions have been carefully mastered to reveal the depth, precision, and musical richness that have made ‘Kamakiriad’ one of the standout releases in Donald Fagen’s solo catalog.

Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More

I didn’t know this was Larry Carlton’s first appearance on a Steely Dan track.

“Katy Lied” is the least talked about Steely Dan album, except for maybe the two latter-day twenty first century LPs

I used to think that crown was held by “The Royal Scam,” but that album has fans, of the opening cut, “Kid Charlemagne,” which also features a Larry Carlton solo, and “Everything You Did,” ditto, and “Haitian Divorce,” with its reference to the Eagles.

But no one ever talks about “Katy Lied.” At least not to me.

The Doobie Brothers 1976 classic indebted to Steely Dan

Taken from their Takin’ It to the Streets album, ‘Wheels of Fortune’ was a bit of a disappointment for the group upon its initial release as a single in 1976.

Every Steely Dan Album, Ranked

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met as teenagers at Bard College in upstate New York in 1967, and their shared enthusiasm for '50s jazz and beat poetry set them apart from their peers. After a stint writing together in the Brill Building in the waning days of the famous Manhattan song factory, Becker and Fagen caught the attention of ABC Records staff producer Gary Katz, who encouraged them to relocate to Los Angeles and form a band.

8 Songs That Show Walter Becker’s Brilliance

From “Pretzel Logic” to “Slang of Ages,” the Steely Dan co-founder’s sharp style always resonated.

Why did Steely Dan name their song 'Barrytown'?

Die hard Steely Dan fans have made a few references that might give us an idea as to why the band named a song after a 100 person hamlet. Barrytown once hosted a seminary of the Unification Church, founded by South Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon who was later accused of starting a cult.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

The Becker-Fagen songbook mixtape (volume one)

Explore songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen that never appeared on a Steely Dan album.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK on their 1976 European promotional tour.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan with their producer Gary Katz at the Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California during the recording sessions of their 1974 masterpiece, 'Pretzel Logic'.

Original album cover artwork for Steely Dan's seminal 1976 release, 'The Royal Scam' (Painting Larry Zox/Photography Charlie Ganse)

Denny Dias of Steely Dan performing at the Rainbow Theatre, London, UK, 1974.

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

In 1978, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen was asked to develop a rock track for an upcoming comedy-drama directed by John A. Alonzo. Based on the film's storyline, Steely Dan released "FM (No Static at All)" that became a radio hit and a Grammy winner.

The Session Musicians Who Helped Steely Dan Rule

As their music became more complex, the group turned to a murderer’s row of session giants who helped make their songs sparkle. Here are just a few.

Was ‘The Sopranos’ to blame for the rebirth of Steely Dan?

The use of music in ‘The Sopranos’ was legendary and one of the most talked-about parts of the show. But did it help revive Steely Dan?

Steely Dan's 'Hey Nineteen' Ranks No. 8 in SiriusXM's Top Yacht Rock Songs

"Donald Fagen and Walter Becker perfected the art of cool detachment on this sly, jazz-infused Steely Dan hit," SiriusXM wrote of the Top 10 hit in its fan-voted ranking. "It's one of the defining tracks of the entire yacht-rock movement."

How Steely Dan Perfected Their Studio Craft

Steely Dan walked away from live performance almost entirely in the mid-1970s. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen turned the band into something closer to a studio workshop, built around rotating casts of the best session musicians money could hire. What came out of that decision reshaped what studio perfectionism could actually mean in popular music.

Deep Cut: “King of the World” by Steely Dan

The apocalyptic ‘Countdown to Ecstasy’ track was inspired by the 1962 film ‘Panic in Year Zero.'

How Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’ Became Their Breakthrough Hit in 1972

Built around a distinctive electric sitar riff, Latin-inspired percussion and cryptic storytelling lyrics, the song sounded unlike almost anything else on mainstream radio at the time.

How Steely Dan's lowest moment led to their defining 1973 record

As Dias described touring life with Steely Dan to Mojo in 1995, it was “kinda like going to war: hours of boredom, followed by seconds of terror”. The contrast was understandable: days spent in a van or bus, travelling from one venue to the next in anticipation of those couple of hours on-stage where all else is forgotten – only to circle back and do it all again – is an emotional whiplash waiting to happen.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Donald Fagen waits all night for calls like these

In a never-before-published appearance on the call-in show 'Rockline' from 1983, Fagen hears from listeners about his debut solo album, 'The Nightfly.'

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Donald Fagen, Walter Becker: Los Angeles, California, 1976

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

The 1973 Steely Dan song that was written as a joke: “A parody”

On Countdown to Ecstasy, the band went in a more experimental direction that didn’t always suit their sound, leading to songs that drag out a bit longer than they should.

For all of the great songs on the back half, like ‘My Old School’, ‘Bodhisattva’ practically grabs you by the throat from the minute it starts. While the backing track feels like you’re listening to the band cutting loose in the studio with endless amounts of guitar and keyboard solos, the lyrics were a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the band had been used to.

‘Countdown To Ecstasy’: How Steely Dan Forged Their Identity

A combination of energy, grooves, and whip-smart lyrics saw Walter Becker and Donald Fagen hit new heights.

Steely Dan Introduced Its Brainy Rock Side On ‘Countdown To Ecstasy’

Hardly the commercial success of its predecessor Can’t Buy A Thrill, the second Steely Dan album, Countdown to Ecstasy, (released July 1973) was the only record of the group’s written and arranged for a live band. Not that the two factors are inextricably intertwined, but the sophomore Dan is permeated with the sense of unity in performances by an ensemble that was touring at the time, albeit sporadically and only begrudgingly (at least in the minds of the group’s emerging titular co-leaders Donal Fegen and Walter Becker).

When Steely Dan Refused to Settle on 'Countdown to Ecstasy'

Countdown to Ecstasy “was the only album where the songs were developed on the road, in rehearsal and onstage,” Fagen told Mojo in 1995. “We were playing them before the album was recorded, so it had a more live, blowing feel about it.”

This approach is evident on album opener “Bodhisattva,” a bop jazz rave-up with a pair of scorching solos from guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. The second single “My Old School” — inspired by a drug bust at Fagen and Becker’s alma mater, Bard College — likewise has a crackling live energy to it, propelled by Fagen’s peppy piano playing and a blustery saxophone quartet.

Steely Dan Fans Are Revisiting Walter Becker's Last Concert Because of One Rare Moment That Became Far More Haunting in Hindsight

On May 27, 2017, Steely Dan played a 17-song set at the Greenwich Town Party in Greenwich, Connecticut. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen ran through their catalog while a fan in the crowd recorded the entire show. It looked like any other gig at the end of a spring tour.

Three months later, Becker was dead.

The Steely Dan album their label hated

Maybe it’s their deadly serious in-studio perfectionism, or the fact that Steely Dan wound up on the shortlist of quintessential “dad rock” bands, but it’s just hard to wrap one’s mind around just how young Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were when their debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, became the unexpected hit of 1972.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

The best Steely Dan stories from the Grammy Museum event

Highlights from “Reelin’ in the Early Years of Steely Dan,” featuring Denny Dias, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Dean Parks, and more.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Donald Fagen 'Vanity Fair' magazine article, 1993

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen performing with The New York Rock and Soul Review at the Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, New York, 1992

💻 Online

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Steely Dan’s fifth studio album, The Royal Scam, known for classic cuts like “Kid Charlemagne,” “The Fez,” “The Caves of Altamira,” and the classic title track, celebrated its 50th anniversary last month — originally released on May 31, 1976.

Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam turns 50

Most Dan aficionados will tell you that Aja, which came along just a year later in 1977, is the album to choose if you want to hear the band at their absolute peak, and I’m not here to start an argument.

Aja has Deacon Blues, it has Home At Last, it has the title track, and it has arguably Steely Dan’s most famous song, Peg, but what it doesn’t have is Kid Charlemagne, one of the greatest songs in the band’s extensive repertoire of great songs.

Haitian Divorce: Steely Dan’s 'The Royal Scam' at 50

Even though it is technically an LP, Fagen/Becker also made it out to be just as much of an anthology of losers and low-lives as if we were thumbing through a short story collection or watching a film anthology, so we’re going to pick it apart as such, but not forget we’ve also got an album on our hands.

The most underappreciated Steely Dan album turns fifty this year

Steely Dan’s greatest forgotten album: There are those of us who hold the collection of bitter tales of crime and infidelity close to our hearts. We are a minority, but a visible one. And we believe with a passion that The Royal Scam needs to be rescued from the purgatory it has lived in for the past fifty years.

Five musicians who absolutely loved Steely Dan

We have gathered the thoughts of a few legends who love Steely Dan below. There are many others who adore them, from emerging stars like Sam Fender to a reserved sense of appreciation from Bob Dylan, but the admirers we have chosen seem to share a kinship of note with the singular joking jazz masqueraders, too.

1978 Jazz Rock Classic, Created for a Box Office Flop, Became a Defining Radio Anthem

In 1978, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen was asked to develop a rock track for an upcoming comedy-drama directed by John A. Alonzo. Based on the film’s storyline, Steely Dan released “FM (No Static at All)” that became a radio hit and a Grammy winner.

Walter Becker, the Cayenne in the Steely Dan Recipe

Steely Dan's Becker and Fagen were storytellers who invented characters whose odd, off-putting circumstances commented on the world as incisively as any Bob Dylan lyrics.

Born Middle-Aged: Eight Books on Steely Dan

A review of the literature on the hyperliterate jazz-rock ironists from 1970s L.A.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Zox explains nightmarish ‘Royal Scam’ painting

In late April, Sotheby’s auctioned a work of art well known to Steely Dan fans: a painting by the artist Zox, featuring skyscrapers capped by the heads of monstrous beasts. Originally made for Van Morrison’s album Naked in the Jungle, the piece was repurposed for the cover of The Royal Scam in 1976.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

💻 Online

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Donald Fagen last played under the name Steely Dan in March 2024. So what’s he been doing since then? According to his stepdaughter, he’s “enjoying his retirement,” though he’s still making music and performing occasionally.

Five early Steely Dan rarities you need to know

Can’t Buy a Thrill was a near-immediate success, with two hit singles (“Do It Again” and “Reelin’ in the Years”) as well as popular album cuts. But even with all that success, there are little-known recordings from that era of the band’s activity. Here are five of the least-known and most notable.

A Steely Dan Biopic Shouldn't Lose Paul Walter Hauser's Number

There exists a universe, not too different from ours, where Walter Hauser's next move comes from a place of pretzel logic; that is, the dirty work of starring in a Steely Dan musical biopic.

1977 Rock Hit Named Among Greatest Drum Solos of All Time

Legendary studio drummer Steve Gadd made his debut with Steely Dan on the Aja, which immediately became one of the best drum solos of all time.

The Grateful Dead and Steely Dan Recorded at This Quirky Cali Home Asking $4.4M

Aptly known as The Church throughout the years, the building is in the Marin County town of San Anselmo, about 20 miles north of San Francisco, and is actually made up of two churches—the original structure dates to 1906, and in the 1950s, when the Presbyterian congregation outgrew the church, they built a larger separate building

Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam turns 50 this month – and it's a brilliant test of your hi-fi’s chops

Aja is considered the band’s sonic pinnacle, but its predecessor gives your system just as much of a challenge.

"The most bad ass opening to any song," according to Sam Fender

“‘Caves of Altemeera’ is just like when I first heard it I thought it was the most badass opening to any song with the horns and all the ‘baaaduuuum’. It’s just that huge brass section. And it has got such a good groove. They’re the best groove players, Steely Dan, because they always have the best session musicians in,” he said of the 1976 classic from The Royal Scam.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Listen to Donald Fagen’s favorite records

Sonny, Miles, Mingus, Monk, Ray, Dylan, the Beatles, and more.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker at Hyperbolic Sound Studios, Maui, Hawaii, 1994 (’Mix’ magazine photoshoot)

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan at Anchor Records, London, UK receiving Gold Discs from record exec Ian Ralfini to commemorate the sales of 100,000 copies of their 1976 hit single, ‘Haitian Divorce’

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at Becker’s Los Angeles home in 1977

💻 Online

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Few recording outfits have created an ambience of such refinement and individual style as the outfit founded by Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker.

4 Steely Dan Classics That Were Enlivened by Unforgettable Guitar Solos

Steely Dan is known for the songwriting of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. But these songs would be the same without their guitar solos.

The only band Frank Zappa seemed to genuinely admire: “I’d give it a 98”

There was also a perfectionist streak that linked both camps together. Steely Dan became notorious for obsessing over studio precision, cycling through elite session musicians until every chord change and rhythmic accent landed exactly where they wanted it.

The 1976 song Steely Dan used to ‘take the piss’ out of the Eagles: “They’re very droll”

The track can be regarded as one of the lesser-known efforts of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. However, it does include one of their most quotable lines: “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening”. The line, within the context of an angry song directed at a lover, has often felt like a condemnation of the Eagles’ easy-listening attitudes.

“It was like getting into a swimming pool with lead weights tied to your boot.” Mark Knopfler on his grueling 10-hour Steely Dan session that resulted in just seconds of music

Fresh off the success of “Sultans of Swing,” the Dire Straits guitarist joined Donald Fagen and Walter Becker in the studio — and discovered just how painstaking their recording process could be.

‘Deacon Blues’: Steely Dan’s most autobiographical song

As is to be expected for a band with such an original sound, Fagen and Becker explored a wide variety of different themes and narratives throughout the discography of Steely Dan. There never seemed to be one particular motif in terms of lyricism.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Never-before-seen Steely Dan photos

Hundreds of recently discovered images from the 1970s offer an intimate look at Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in the studio.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Royce Jones, Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen at ABC Studios, Los Angeles, California during the recording sessions of Steely Dan's 1975 masterpiece, 'Katy Lied'

Still from the promo video for Donald Fagen's 1993 classic, 'Tomorrows Girls' which was directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards where their 2000 release, ‘Two Against Nature’ triumphed in four categories including the coveted ‘Album of the Year’ award

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

A few months before the lockdowns I got an email from someone calling themselves “Donald Fagen.” Surely this was one of my friends gaslighting me, yet I could not imagine any of them possessing even the basic coding skills required for creating a convincing fake email account. But it actually turned out to be the real Donald Fagen.

The Session Masters Who Helped Steely Dan Rule

As their music became more complex, the group turned to a murderer’s row of session giants who helped make their songs sparkle. Here are just a few.

How a misunderstood song from 1973 became a Steely Dan favourite

Their stark inversion of the norm is so extensive that the group’s material is frequently misunderstood by those unfamiliar with their work and, sometimes, even by their own fans. Whether this is regarding their surreal lyrics, the blend of musical styles or complex compositions, while there is a lot to love about Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s band, there are barriers in the way of the uninitiated.

Influences: Donald Fagen [March 16, 2006]

Your first solo album, The Nightfly, was inspired by fifties jazz disc jockeys. Which ones were your favorites? Symphony Sid was very popular. Mort Fega was probably the best all-around jazz D.J. Ed Beach on WRVR would do this very scholarly afternoon show, and I’d listen to that when I came home from school. But the figure of the Nightfly was based more on a guy who didn’t play jazz records, Jean Shepherd. He was a monologuist who used to just talk and tell stories and say funny things. He was a social satirist.

The 1980 song that took Steely Dan 274 mixes to get right

Their silky-smooth production and painstaking processes are a benchmark for producers to hit still to this day. If you’re aiming for that super-polished texture in a track, well, just about any Steely Dan recording will send euphoric shivers down your spine.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Steely Dan Audio Doc

Listen to “Reelin’ in the Years: The Steely Dan Story,” a two-part, career-spanning BBC Radio documentary that first aired in 2000.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK on their 1976 European promotional tour

Steely Dan with ABC Records' executives and their producer Gary Katz, looking absolutely thrilled about the Gold status of their 1972 debut masterpiece, 'Can't Buy a Thrill'

💻 Online

Michael McDonald, Donald Fagen, Boz Skaggs- Full Concert!

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

grew more fringe with each successive album, Steely Dan is surprisingly present in modern pop culture. From Vince Gilligan’s drug crime series Breaking Bad (2008-13) and Judd Apatow’s romantic comedy Knocked Up (2007), to John Mulaney’s stand-up comedy, the band receives plenty of references decades after their heyday. Their songs, too, feature frequently in TV and film. The Farley brothers’ 2000 comedy Me, Myself & Irene hosts a soundtrack full of Steely Dan covers. “Deacon Blues” grooves through David Fincher’s cop drama Zodiac (2007), and “Reelin’ in the Years” rocks out in Cameron Crowe’s showbiz drama Almost Famous (2000).

No Steely Dan song, however, graces the screen quite as often as “Dirty Work”, the second track from their 1972 debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill.

The Deceptively Cheery Steely Dan Hit From 1977 That Epitomized Their Unique Studio Approach

Studio perfectionism and jazzy inclinations set Steely Dan apart from the other rock bands of the 70s. Despite a wildly different approach from their peers and a reticence to promote themselves, the band proved pretty effective at churning out hit singles over the years.

“Peg”, which the band recorded for their 1977 album Aja, offers a good example of this phenomenon. The band combined plentiful musical complexity and a touch of lyrical acidity with hooks aplenty and walked away with a Top 15 hit.

How Steely Dan’s Darkly Humorous Debut Finally Got Made

Donald Fagen didn’t want to sing. He didn’t think he had a voice – limited range, low power – that was worthy of fronting a rock ’n’ roll band, despite the encouragement of Steely Dan’s own members. It had been a long road to get here.

How Rickie Lee Jones Wrote ‘The Horses’ With Walter Becker of Steely Dan

“He was my producer of ‘Flying Cowboys’,” Rickie Lee Jones tells Noise11.com. “I had this song and I said to him ‘it feels like it’s just not going anywhere’. He listened and he said ‘what if you change the key in the chorus?’ I don’t know music but he said it was relative to the key and we could go here. So he changed the key and I didn’t like it very much but I wasn’t going to say no to him because I know he is a great writer so I said ‘okay lets do that’. And that’s what we did”.

How millennials came to unironically love Steely Dan

Around 2020 an ongoing groundswell of semi-ironic Dan appreciation became a full-fledged revival — at least online, which in 2020 was technically where most things took place. On social media, Steely Dan memes have become a vibrant comedic subgenre unto themselves, thanks to Dan meme accounts with inside-baseball handles like Lester the Nightfly, I.G.Y. Azalea and Bodacious Callboys.

Steely Dan’s Last Top 40 Hit Masked Lyrical Darkness in Peppy Music

They gained a reputation for delivering music that didn’t skimp on the complexity. Yet that didn’t stop Steely Dan from consistently frequenting the pop singles charts during their extraordinary career.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

The rhythm of Steely Dan’s revival

As “Alive in America” comes to vinyl, drummer Peter Erskine and bassist Tom Barney reflect on touring with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in the ‘90s.

\📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan with Moby backstage at the 16th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony which was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, NYC, 2001

Japanese promo ad for Steely Dan's 1977 magnum opus, 'Aja'

💻 Online

Click to listen….

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Little has been heard from Donald Fagen since Steely Dan played its last show to date in March 2024.

Fagen did appear at the 2024 Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony in June of that year to accept the honor on behalf of Steely Dan.

His stepdaughter Amy Helm revealed in a new interview with Vulture that her stepdad currently has no plans to tour with Steely Dan again.

“He’s doing fantastic,” she reported. “He’s living up here in Woodstock full time. We’ve been playing a lot of music. He’s enjoying his retirement. He’s playing piano and singing the occasional rock-and-roll cover with our family band at the Midnight Ramble, and we’re having a great time.”

* Amy told Vulture that it’s not out of the question that Fagen could change his mind about touring again.

The Joy of Slap

Steely Dan didn’t want slapping on “Peg.” In 1976 and ‘77, when the jazz-rock group was making Aja, its classic sixth album, disco’s dominance of the pop charts was at its peak, and slap bass was everywhere.

You know the sound, even if you don’t know how it’s made: metallic, percussive, throaty, maybe a little seductive if you have a taste for mutton chops and velour, like the croak of a robotic toad sitting at a cocktail lounge in mating season. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan’s exacting masterminds, didn’t want to follow the fad. Chuck Rainey had other ideas.

“He wanted to make perfect records”: The most skilled member of the Steely Dan duo, according to their session guitarist

Two-piece bands ought to be approached with caution; without anybody else there to mediate, this sibling-like approach to music making can quickly end in squabbling, but in the case of Steely Dan, it was the perfect setup, as these two musical misfits were unlikely to ever find another musician quite as particular as them.

Every Steely Dan Album Released in the 70s, Ranked

Steely Dan carved out a unique place in music history, fueled by studio perfectionism, potent and ironic lyrics and a jazz-rock sensibility that scored mainstream success while creating a cult following. The duo of Donald Fagen on keyboards and vocals and the late Walter Becker on guitar, bass and vocals teamed up with a bevy of renowned studio musicians to create a lasting musical legacy that continues to find an audience years later.

Five Deep Cuts Underscore the Overlooked Brilliance of Steely Dan’s ‘Katy Lied’

Released in March 1975, the often-overlooked Katy Lied marked the first album after the breakup of Steely Dan’s original lineup. From now on, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would choose from among music’s most talented and sought-after sessions players. As the following five deep cuts show, Katy Lied was better for it.

The strangest song Donald Fagen ever wrote

Jazz has always been a genre that favours the strange and outlandish. In every style and subgenre that falls under the jazz umbrella, the artists who dare to put themselves out there as true origins are often those who are most handsomely rewarded.

Steely Dan's "Gaucho" Is a Masterpiece About Being Past Your Prime

What do you look for in a song? I’ve spent years asking myself this. Am I a lyrics guy? Is it the actual music, like the piano or guitar or whatever instrument is leading the pack? Does it have to be one or the other? Can it be a case-by-case scenario? If so, out of the countless hours I’ve spent in my lifetime with the headphones on or a record playing nearby, has one musician or group brought me more happiness overall?

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Steely Dan’s gone to the movies

A survey of films that include the music of Walter Becker and/or Donald Fagen.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley might be gone now, but his X account will forever be must-see.

Steely Dan performing on 'The Midnight Special' in 1973

Jeff ''Skunk'' Baxter, Jim Hodder, Denny Dias, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan at the Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California during the recording sessions of their 1973 masterpiece, 'Countdown to Ecstasy' ('Music Life' magazine clipping)

💻 Online

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter: Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, and the Sound of an Era

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is one of the most iconic guitarists of all time, and in this interview, he shares the incredible stories behind his legendary career. From playing unforgettable solos on Steely Dan hits like "My Old School" and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" to his time with The Doobie Brothers, Jeff opens up about what it was like to shape the sound of two of the most influential bands in rock history.

Click to watch.

💿 Steely Dan: Every Song Ranked

There’s no story anywhere in music like Steely Dan.

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Photo by Henry Diltz

Subscribe now

Steely Dan were on a roll when the rock duo (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) released Gaucho in 1980. It reached nine on the album chart, with “Hey, Nineteen” becoming a number ten single. Big FM radio, 1970s hits (“Do It Again”, “Reelin’ in the Years”, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”, “Black Cow”) made this run of seven albums in 11 years the most successful mash-up of rock and sophisticated jazz elements, not to mention lyrics rife with obscure references, in history.

8 Songs That Show Walter Becker’s Brilliance

From “Pretzel Logic” to “Slang of Ages,” the Steely Dan co-founder’s sharp style always resonated.

Listen to What Is Probably the Greatest Steely Dan Show Ever, in 1974

Presented here is Dawson’s mixing desk recording of perhaps the single greatest performance ever by the original Steely Dan lineup, recorded on opening night of a two-night engagement at London’s Rainbow Theater in Finsbury Park on the evening of May 20, 1974.

5 Surprising Facts About Steely Dan’s ‘Can’t Buy a Thrill’

Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill is one of those rare debut albums that sounds like a band that had already lived a lifetime together. Released in 1972, it introduced the world to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s fusion of rock, jazz, and intricate storytelling, all wrapped in sophisticated, sometimes cryptic, lyrics.

3 Times Steely Dan Caused a Stir With Fellow Musicians

When one thinks of Steely Dan, one rarely thinks of the word “divas”. However, the original lineup of the 1970s antihero jazz-rock outfit was quite famously difficult to work with… And also didn’t bite their tongues when it came to lyricism. Let’s look at just three times Steely Dan ruffled a few feathers of fellow musicians!

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

A never-before-heard Donald Fagen interview

Longtime Conan O'Brien keyboardist Scott Healy talked to Fagen in 2006 about "Morph the Cat," the secret to his Rhodes sound, the magic of the "mu major" chord, and more.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Donald Fagen ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine article, 1993

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at Becker’s Los Angeles home in 1977

Steely Dan performing at the Terrace Ballroom, Salt Lake City, Utah on their 1973 U.S. tour.

💻 Online

Steely Dan “Aja” T.V. Commercial (1978)

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

It is 50 years since the world heard the first bittersweet flowerings of one of music’s most innovative, ambitious and unique pairings. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker first met in 1967 as like-minded students at Bard College, a private liberal arts college in upstate New York. Naming their high-concept band after a steam-powered dildo from William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, in 1971 they relocated from NYC to LA to work as staff songwriters at ABC and never looked back.

“They’re the American Beatles because they coined a musical genre that hadn’t existed before,” says Aimee Mann, one of the eclectic cast of admirers Uncut has invited to celebrate the band’s body of work. “Yes, it’s sort of a mixture of rock and jazz, but the way in which those two elements were combined was completely unique to them. To have the musical facility to put beautiful melodies on top of unlikely chord changes, with such well-written lyrics about really broken, sad subjects, and to create a whole new sound with a really idiosyncratic vocal – that’s the whole package! They invented a new thing.”

5 Surprising Facts About Steely Dan's 'Gaucho'

Steely Dan’s Gaucho, released in November 1980, shimmered with immaculate production, sly lyrics, and rhythms as smooth as a jazz cocktail at sunset. The album arrived after Aja with high expectations and delivered seven polished tracks that leaned deep into atmosphere and sonic precision. But behind all that polish? Chaos, lawsuits, lost tapes, and one very special drum machine. Here are five little-known facts that bring the making of Gaucho into focus—just the way Becker and Fagen liked it.

5 Surprising Facts About Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’

It’s 1974. Steely Dan—at this point still technically a band in the traditional sense—is at a crossroads. They’d done the road. They’d seen the inside of enough dingy clubs and felt the friction of the traveling circus. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the cynical, jazz-obsessed architects behind the curtain, were starting to realize that the five-piece rock group they’d assembled was… well, a limitation.

Steely Dan’s Final Albums Two Decades Later

Steely Dan were on a roll when the rock duo (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) released Gaucho in 1980. It reached nine on the album chart, with “Hey, Nineteen” becoming a number ten single. Big FM radio, 1970s hits (“Do It Again”, “Reelin’ in the Years”, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”, “Black Cow”) made this run of seven albums in 11 years the most successful mash-up of rock and sophisticated jazz elements, not to mention lyrics rife with obscure references, in history.

The first band to inspire the sound of Steely Dan

Perhaps the reason why the 1970s are often regarded as the greatest decade of music is that the musicians who were active during the period had a wealth of things to inspire them. The ‘50s saw the birth of rock and roll as we know it, and the ‘60s saw a slight expansion on this with the emergence of new sounds, meaning that by the 1970s, artists were truly hitting their stride.

4 of the Best Session Musicians To Work With Steely Dan

Steely Dan wasn’t always a studio-only jazz-rock outfit. The band originally had a full lineup. However, core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen ultimately decided to stop performing as a live act by the end of 1974 and opted instead to continue on as a studio-only outfit. Through the years, Steely Dan employed the talents of quite a few session musicians for those studio sessions, and we think the following four performers deserve some credit for making Steely Dan even better. Let’s take a look!

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Steely Dan’s gone to the movies

A survey of films that include the music of Walter Becker and/or Donald Fagen.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Michael McDonald, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan performing at Warnors Theatre, Fresno, California, 1974

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Santa Monica, California, 1977

💻 Online

For the recent Helm Family Ramble shows, Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter, took to social media to let locals in the Woodstock area know about getting tickets. She had a special, subdued guest in the car for her video clips: Step-dad Donald Fagen.

Click to watch the short clips of Any talking about the show… and Donald chewing gum.

💿 Steely Dan: Every Song Ranked

There’s no story anywhere in music like Steely Dan.

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

While it doesn’t feel too far removed from the band’s signature style, ‘Dallas’ has pedal steel guitars lying atop Fagen’s light electric piano touches that make it feel more like a Desperado-era Eagles track than it would be a Steely Dan track, and Fagen’s dismissal of the song was down to this country and Americana slant that it took on.

Upon listening to the track, you’d think there’s no reason why it couldn’t have sat comfortably among the soft-rock leanings of the rest of Can’t Buy A Thrill, but the band’s co-leader put his foot down on the matter.

You Have to Applaud Steely Dan, Even If You Can’t Stand Them

The lack of links between Becker and Fagen, their music, and their fans, does make sense though.

The sound – and more crucially, methods of achieving it – of their run of albums in the 70s was at odds with both the reckless nature of chart rock at the time, and the intentionally rudimentary punk that was kicking back against it. Even with the backdrop of rock and roll excess on their side, 1977’s Aja – their most commercially and creatively successful album – elicited eye-rolls. Becker and Fagen shared a Kubrickian neurosis when it came to art, working under punishing, self-imposed regimes and running an endless string of the world’s greatest musicians through the studio in the pursuit of perfection.

For some, this lacked feeling. In Rolling Stone’s original review, Michael Duffy noted that Aja “will continue to fuel the argument by rock purists that Steely Dan’s music is soulless, and by its calculated nature antithetical to what rock should be.”

How millennials came to unironically love Steely Dan

Around 2020 an ongoing groundswell of semi-ironic Dan appreciation became a full-fledged revival — at least online, which in 2020 was technically where most things took place. On social media, Steely Dan memes have become a vibrant comedic subgenre unto themselves, thanks to Dan meme accounts with inside-baseball handles like Lester the Nightfly, I.G.Y. Azalea and Bodacious Callboys.

A now-dormant Instagram account called People Dancing to Steely Dan celebrated just how well all forms of human movement seem to sync with the Dan’s smooth sounds.

The Steely Dan album their label hated

Maybe it’s their deadly serious in-studio perfectionism, or the fact that Steely Dan wound up on the shortlist of quintessential “dad rock” bands, but it’s just hard to wrap one’s mind around just how young Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were when their debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, became the unexpected hit of 1972.

Donald Fagen’s Top 10

** A cool feature from Criterion back in 2013 — asking Donald Fagen to list his 10 favorite films **

“It’s silly to choose ten, but okay!” wrote Donald Fagen, the American songwriter and musician best known as the cofounder and lead singer of Steely Dan, when presented with the task of picking his favorite titles in the Criterion Collection. The results reveal Fagen as a major fan of art-house classics, especially ones by Fellini (who takes his top two slots). And we’re not surprised he relates to a tale of musical creation like Topsy-Turvy.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Alison Rose (RIP) on Donald Fagen’s nightmares

The former model and New Yorker writer, who died last fall, led a wild literary life fit for a Steely Dan song.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan with their producer Gary Katz at the Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California during the recording sessions of their 1974 masterpiece, 'Pretzel Logic'

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK on their 1976 European promotional tour

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Steely Dan’s Katy Lied was released on ABC Records in March 1975

Katy Lied marked the turning point in the Steely Dan story, the first album Donald Fagen and Walter Becker made after deciding to ditch the rigors of the road and fully devote themselves to pursuing perfection in the studio.

Led by the songwriting and virtuoso musical duo of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan released an extraordinary run of seven albums on ABC Records and MCA Records from 1972 through 1980.

Filled with topline musicianship, clever and subversive wordplay, ironic humor, genius arrangements, and pop hits that outshone the Top 40 of its day, their records, which were as sophisticated and cerebral as they were inscrutable, were stylistically diverse, melding their love of jazz with rock, blues, and impeccable pop songcraft.

Steely Dan’s Katy Lied was released on ABC Records in March 1975, and stands as a milestone in the band’s discography, exemplifying their unique synthesis of rock, jazz, and pop. The album was the first one recorded by Becker and Fagen after guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and drummer Jim Hodder left the group following the duo’s decision to stop touring and focus solely on studio recordings.

Key tracks such as “Black Friday,” “Bad Sneakers,” and “Doctor Wu” showcase Steely Dan’s evolving sound, characterized by complex chord changes, polished studio techniques, and a rotating cast of top-tier studio musicians. This included contributions from guitarist Larry Carlton, 20-year-old drummer Jeff Porcaro, and bassist Chuck Rainey, among others. One of the most notable contributors during this era was Michael McDonald, whose distinctive backing vocals added a rich layer of harmony to several tracks, including “Bad Sneakers” and “Any World (That I’m Welcome To).”

How Steely Dan Became the Definition of '70s Studio Perfection

Sandwiched between Pretzel Logic and The Royal Scam, Steely Dan's 1975 release Katy Lied wasn't about breaking new ground. It was about holding on to the territory they had staked out for themselves over the past few years as one of rock's brightest, smartest and smart-assiest bands.

"Katy Lied" At 50

In the contemporary landscape, the music project has taken the place of the rock band. With the economy getting worse and streaming platforms eating up band revenue, it’s now more cost-effective to do it all yourself. But some digital alchemists have turned this bug into a feature, with artists like Jon Maus, King Krule, Have a Nice Life, Cindy Lee, and Mac DeMarco cooking up low-rent masterpieces in dirty bedrooms across the globe.

50 Years Later: Steely Dan Shapes Iconic Sleek Jazz & Pop Mold With 'Katy Lied'

Steely Dan co-leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker cultivate the most sympathetic characters of their career on the ten songs composed for the now fifty-year-old Katy Lied. But as an ironic twist in keeping with the duo’s acerbic persona, for the first record the group made after the cessation of touring, the titular leaders of the group enlisted anonymous but eventually famous session musicians and singers (including vocalist Michael McDonald) to take the place of (most of) the band pictured on the back of what is arguably the best of all Dan LPs, 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy.

The album Steely Dan were never satisfied with

Any Steely Dan was always going to be a treat for audiophiles everywhere. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were always known for putting the strangest jazz chords known to man into their songs, and yet somehow made the grooviest music known to man whenever they walked out of the studio. Even though they may have had a high pedigree when it came to who was playing on their records, they didn’t have their eyes on the ball when putting together the mix of Katy Lied.

Five Deep Cuts Underscore the Overlooked Brilliance of Steely Dan’s ‘Katy Lied’

Released in March 1975, the often-overlooked Katy Lied marked the first album after the breakup of Steely Dan’s original lineup. From now on, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would choose from among music’s most talented and sought-after sessions players. As the following five deep cuts show, Katy Lied was better for it.

Katy Lied—Steely Dan Retreats to the Studio

Stepping off the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium stage on July 5, 1974, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen closed the books on Steely Dan as a live band. An earlier tour had left both exhausted and Fagen’s voice shredded, prompting an epiphany about the road’s toll on their physical and mental health. “We made the decision to hang up our high-heeled sneakers and, at least for the time being, come off the road,” Fagen wrote decades later.

💬 From the (always excellent) world of Expanding Dan

Steely Dan’s big Grammys night, 25 years later

Engineer Dave Russell recalls the making of ‘Two Against Nature’ and the exhilaration of the 2001 Grammy Awards.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK on their 1976 European promotional tour.

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Steely Dan released their third studio album, “Pretzel Logic”, on this day in 1974. It was the last album to feature the band’s full lineup and marked the band’s increasing use of session musicians.

The third album by the tastemaking and groundbreaking band became their most successful to date on its first release, climbing to No.8 on the Billboard bestsellers in a 36-week chart stay. Pretzel Logic, which also featured such favorites as “Any Major Dude Will Tell You,” “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” and “Barrytown,” was certified gold in the US by the RIAA in May 1974, just three months after release, and went on to achieve platinum status in 1993.

“Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” the lead single, reached No.4, their highest-ever placing on the Billboard Hot 100.

50 years later, Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’ still sounds fresh

Coolly detached, ironic and arch, Steely Dan has always stood apart from their contemporaries. The songs written by singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen and guitarist-bassist Walter Becker didn’t sound like what was popular at the time.

This was not heroic rock ‘n’ roll in the manner of Rod Stewart or Bad Company. Steely Dan’s music of profound uneasiness erased any trace of macho egotism. And that’s another reason it continues to sound as fresh and inviting as it does.

Those Days Are Gone Forever: Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’ at 50

Steely Dan’s 50-year-old third album, Pretzel Logic, conceals its dark satirical vision of modern society beneath immaculate studio production.

Five Moments of Eternal Brilliance From Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’

Steely Dan’s third long-player Pretzel Logic arrived on Feb. 20, 1974, as a pinnacle achievement for the premier jazz-pop rock band and one of those great classic rock albums of the ’70s. That’s worth some sort of review from the perspective of judging how well it’s aged over the years, but it’s been done a billion times already.

Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker was born on this day in 1950 in Queens, New York. Along with Donald Fagen, Becker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 as a member of Steely Dan. Becker passed away in 2017.

‘An All-Around Musician’: Steely Dan Guitarists Share Their Experiences of Working With Walter Becker

One of the great legacies of Steely Dan exists in the band’s second guitarist seat. Billboard had the opportunity to speak with four men who sat in that all-important chair of the Steely Dan.

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Larry Klein on making ‘Circus Money’ with Walter Becker

“It was fantastic drinking wine and laughing our asses off and exploring the dark territory of our romantic lives.”

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards where their 2000 release, 'Two Against Nature' triumphed in four categories including the coveted 'Album of the Year' award.

💻 Online

Walter Becker (d.2017), the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of Steely Dan, would have turned 76 today.

Performing “Josie”(1978) at Sony Music Studios in NYC in January 2000.

Click the image to watch!

Have a GREAT day! 😎

During an interview with Musician magazine in 1981, he was asked at what point in the band’s career does he start to recognise their brilliance and which of his own records he can stand to listen back to. His response, suffice to say, was particularly damning.

How Steely Dan’s Darkly Humorous Debut Finally Got Made

Donald Fagen didn’t want to sing. He didn’t think he had a voice – limited range, low power – that was worthy of fronting a rock ’n’ roll band, despite the encouragement of Steely Dan’s own members. It had been a long road to get here.

How Rickie Lee Jones Wrote ‘The Horses’ With Walter Becker of Steely Dan

“He was my producer of ‘Flying Cowboys’,” Rickie Lee Jones tells Noise11.com. “I had this song and I said to him ‘it feels like it’s just not going anywhere’. He listened and he said ‘what if you change the key in the chorus?’ I don’t know music but he said it was relative to the key and we could go here. So he changed the key and I didn’t like it very much but I wasn’t going to say no to him because I know he is a great writer so I said ‘okay lets do that’. And that’s what we did”.

Why Steely Dan Still Resonates with Music Fans Today

Steely Dan is one of those rare names in music that sparks instant recognition. Whether you’re spinning a vinyl record, pressing play on a compact disk, or diving into your Spotify playlist, their sound feels like an intimate conversation between musicians who know exactly what they’re doing.

How an advanced drum machine saved a difficult Steely Dan album

The innovative machine also received its own platinum record for its painstaking drum replacement.

Born Middle-Aged: Eight Books on Steely Dan

A review of the literature on the hyperliterate jazz-rock ironists from 1970s L.A.

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Stealing Dan: a soundalikes mixtape

Listen to Becker-Fagen rip-offs from Japan, the Philippines, and the UK.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Denny Dias of Steely Dan performing at the Rainbow Theatre, London, UK, 1974

💻 Online

Click to listen and enjoy!!

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

For the first time on vinyl, Steely Dan’s first official live album, Alive in America, captures the immaculate jazz-rock precision and wit of their triumphant 1990s return to the stage.

Experience the high-fidelity sound of Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and their all-star band delivering stunning, extended versions of classics like “Aja,” “Reelin’ In the Years,” and “Kid Charlemagne” on 180 Gram Black Vinyl. This essential double-LP set is an audiophile-grade document of a legendary band proving their studio perfection was equally electric live.

This year’s not-to-miss list includes 51 limited edition releases from the world’s most respected and celebrated artists. Along with Steely Dan, some highlights include vinyl releases from Air, David Bowie, The Doors, Primal Scream, The Cure, Talking Heads, and Yes; and boxed sets from Crosby, Stills, & Nash and the Grateful Dead.

All releases will be available exclusively at select independent music retailers on April 18.

Flashing back: Steely Dan’s Grammy-winning album recorded in ʻUlupalakua turns 25

Longtime Maui resident Dave Russell began his audio engineering career volunteering at a Lahaina studio — a path that ultimately led him to record Steely Dan’s Grammy-winning “Two Against Nature.”

Now, 25 years later, Russell is looking back on the Maui studio and the career-defining moment that took him from the Sugar Cane Train to music’s biggest stage.

Much of “Two Against Nature” was recorded in ʻUlupalakua at Hyperbolic Sound, the private studio of Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker. The secluded seven-acre property sat in the middle of the 18,000-acre ʻUlupalakua Ranch, on the slopes of Haleakalā.

The jazz musicians who shaped Walter Becker and infused Steely Dan

Listening to any Steely Dan song will tell you that jazz was a part of the group’s DNA. Throughout albums like Can’t Buy a Thrill, Becker and Fagen were already becoming massive jazz fans, featuring different instrumental breaks that may as well be traditional jazz tunes.

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Walter Becker lets the mask slip

“There is a level of perfection that Donald wants to hear in his music that I ran out of patience to do,” Becker says in a candid, never-before-heard interview from 2008.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan with their producer Gary Katz at the Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California during the recording sessions of their 1974 masterpiece, 'Pretzel Logic'

💻 Online

From AXS TV: Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen on Ray Charles and the influence Ray had on his music.

Click image to watch!

Music Mentor asks: What is the Greatest Deepest track by Steely Dan. Lots of good replies. I said “Monkey in Your Soul.”

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Next to Larry Carlton, no guitarist played on more Steely Dan tracks than Dean Parks. It was both Parks’ versatility as well as his boundless creativity that led Dan collaborators Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to rely so heavily on him.

David Crosby Credited This Steely Dan Album With Helping Him "Stay Alive" During Struggles With Addiction

In early 2019, Crosby joined Steely Dan in Santa Barbara for a performance of their 1977 song “Home at Last.” Later that year, in October, Crosby also joined Steely Dan on stage for two nights at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, where they performed the Steely Dan classic “Reelin’ in the Years” along with CSN’s “Wooden Ships.”

Having Cultural Impact

Steely Dan’s “Aja.” It was the same two guys, but the sound was completely different. Nothing on “The Royal Scam” prepared the audience for the jazz-influenced “Aja,” with its extended tunes. On paper, a disastrous career move. In reality, although sounding completely different from everything in the rock marketplace, the audience embraced “Aja,” because it hungered for something new, an alternative to the corporate rock pablum that was being purveyed.

5 Surprising Facts About Steely Dan's 'Can't Buy a Thrill'

Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill is one of those rare debut albums that sounds like a band that had already lived a lifetime together. Released in 1972, it introduced the world to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s fusion of rock, jazz, and intricate storytelling, all wrapped in sophisticated, sometimes cryptic, lyrics.

The meaning behind Steely Dan song 'Brooklyn'

Let’s be real. Getting a song written about you is a dubious honour. Sure, you may be getting a beautiful love song written about you, or a tribute to your close friendship. It can happen. In reality, though, if you’ve got a song written about you, it’s probably not anything you’d actually want to play to anyone—especially if the artist who wrote it was Steely Dan.

Show Biz Kids: Steely Dan’s Lasting Legacy

Lou Reed (who would know) once offered the following aphorism on rock music: “One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords, and you’re into jazz”.

One wonders what he would have made of such Steely Dan offerings as “Gaucho” (26 chords) or “Deacon Blues” (35 chords).

8 Songs That Show Walter Becker’s Brilliance

From “Pretzel Logic” to “Slang of Ages,” the Steely Dan co-founder’s sharp style always resonated.

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

How Steely Dan’s ‘Second Arrangement’ was erased

In his first-ever interview, the engineer who recorded over the song tells all.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley is no longer with us, but his X account will forever be loved and truly essential for fans of Steely Dan (and so many other related, legendary artists).

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK on their 1976 European promotional tour.

💻 Online

Over on X, cinesthetic. posed the question: ‘Name a song in a movie that takes a scene to the next level.’ He followed up with:

The Steely Dan needle drop in One Battle After Another lands perfectly.

Name a movie in which two leads have perfect chemistry.

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now

Happy Birthday to Donald Fagen — singer, co-songwriter and co-founder of Steely Dan.

Fagen turns 78 today.

Legend.

Icon: Donald Fagen

As one half of Steely Dan, Donald Fagen was responsible for what many consider to be one of the greatest albums ever made, 1977's jazz-infused masterpiece, Aja.

With a career that has seen him veer from rock stardom to pathological secrecy, via long periods of inactivity, Fagen remains one of the most enigmatic men in the music industry, and adored by the likes of Kanye West, Daft Punk and Mark Ronson.

Highly metropolitan, they excelled at manipulated isolation, while Fagen and Becker were labelled the most cynical and ferociously intelligent songwriters in the business.

"Our music is somehow a little too cheesy at times and turns off the rock intelligentsia for the most part," said Fagen in the mid-Seventies. "At other times it's too bizarre to be appreciated by anybody."

Experts said they welded jazz and rock into an alloy so smooth and shiny it was difficult to tell where the one ended and the other began, sneering at the world from a position of bohemian superiority so rarefied it was hard to tell exactly where it was situated.

Donald Fagen’s Top 10

** A cool feature from Criterion back in 2013 — asking Donald Fagen to list his 10 favorite films

“It’s silly to choose ten, but okay!” wrote Donald Fagen, the American songwriter and musician best known as the cofounder and lead singer of Steely Dan, when presented with the task of picking his favorite titles in the Criterion Collection. The results reveal Fagen as a major fan of art-house classics, especially ones by Fellini (who takes his top two slots). And we’re not surprised he relates to a tale of musical creation like Topsy-Turvy.

How Steely Dan kept their credibility, according to Donald Fagen

If you’re going to be high-brow about the way in which you use humour, then you’ve got to expect some form of backlash or accept the fact that it won’t be something that will register with every listener, but at the same time, this was also what helped Steely Dan find their own adoring fanbase who were appreciative of their attempts at lightening the mood.

The one genre Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen hates

Donald Fagen is “just being honest”. He’s always just being honest, in fact, he’s belligerently honest—the Larry David of music, if you will. Much like the egg-headed comic, this blunt honesty comes from a sincerely curmudgeonly place. Like a lot of curmudgeonly folks, Fagen’s also pretty funny too. “My natural motive is irony,” he says—the music of Steely Dan should tell you that. It is an expression of individualism—irreverent, snaky, jazzy and acerbic individualism. And it is most certainly not ‘rock.’

Why Howard Jones Covered Donald Fagen’s ‘I.G.Y.

How did you get into Steely Dan's music back in the day?

It was the first album, Can't Buy a Thrill and "Reelin' in the Years." I heard that early and just grew up with them from there.

Obviously, the music got more and more complex as the albums came out. I was progressing in my own musical world as well. I was taking it all in and thinking, "Oh my God, what chords are they playing?"

The rock star Donald Fagen considered a walking miracle: “Actually very inspiring”

Donald Fagen has a great deal of respect for the live performance. It’s a common misconception that he hated playing live; he didn’t. He had a lot of fun performing with Steely Dan, but decided he preferred working in the studio over playing on stage. By stopping performing, the pressure to write songs which could be played live ceased, and he could really embrace his creativity. Despite this affinity for the studio, though, Fagen still enjoyed both watching people play live and doing it himself.

💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter

Becker and Fagen make a mixtape

The Steely Dan duo were asked to select their favorite songs. Now you can hear the result.

📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account

Barney Hurley continues to feature great Steely Dan content on his must-see X account. There’s equally terrific non-steely Dan content as well!

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan at the Savoy Hotel, London, UK during their 1976 European promotional tour.

1993 U.S. Tour

Have a GREAT day! 😎

Subscribe now